


Five Towers of Harrenhal: The Tale of Mad Danelle Lothston

by Sookiestark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bats, Curses, Dark Magic, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, Harrenhal, House Lothston, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:38:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sookiestark/pseuds/Sookiestark
Summary: The story of Mad Danelle Lothston, Lady of Harrenhal





	1. My Ending, House Qoherys, and the Tower of Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was writing this story about Brynden Rivers and Sheira Seastar. While I was reading all I could about them, I started thinking about Danelle Lothston and House Lothston. I got a little obsessed and read all that I could, watched everything and this story came out of all that. 
> 
>  
> 
> I really want to know more about House Lothston and its connection to House Whent. 
> 
> Much of this story is my own creation, trying to fill in the blanks.
> 
> Anyway- Happy Reading!

Before they walled up the window, I would look at the godswood and could see the tree where Gargon Qoherys, Lord of Harrenhal, was tied to and castrated. His blood was so tainted, supposedly, it still marks the spot. It does not. Once, I had my men dig six feet and the ground beneath is just as black as the dirt anywhere in Harrenhal. However, Gargon still bled slowly to his death, watching a dog eat his penis like it was a rat. Perhaps, it was. After all, Gargon the Guest was more rapist than lord, though back then they were one in the same. Thus ending the House of Qoherys.

Much like my death will end House Lothston. Though my death will not be as colorful, I have no penis to watch a dog eat. If only I had been born with a penis, perhaps, House Lothston would not end with me. 

I catch myself laughing, a bitter cackle. If the guards hear me, they will tell the septon and I will have to listen to them mumble their prayers through the thick oaken door and quell the devils that live in my heart. They have walled my windows in because they could see me in the Tower of Ghosts, pale face against the blackened twisted stone, and were afraid I would call spells down on them, enchantments to sour milk, twist wombs, soften cocks, and all other things witches do. I would call my giant bats down and they would drink their blood. Or was it me who drank their blood?

They have me locked in the Tower of Ghosts, as they plan to execute me. The Tower of Ghosts is the furthest tower from the main keep, the easternmost one, the most ruined and the most haunted. It was definitely the most appropriate place to put me while they plan my death. It takes a great deal of time to plan an execution of a serial murderer of children and a witch. When I was a child, Aegon the Unworthy would have come and had taken my head and be done with it, though he may have fucked me first. From what I understand, King Aegon IV was not choosey.

 

The King’s Justice has been sent for in King’s Landing. I wonder if they will put me on a rack or take out my eyes, pull out my tongue or burn me. After all, I do not think a woman has been killed for witchcraft in the Riverlands, since Baelor sat on the Iron Throne. If I get to choose, I will ask for the headsman axe, or even a sword, a clean death, a warrior’s death. Plus, I do not want my memories or thoughts. I do not want to bring them with me in the afterlife. My brother comes to me at night and whispers to me as does Mother, Aunt Jeyne, Uncle Manfred, Grandmother, Grandfather, and all my dead boys. The girls, they say I killed, I never see. They do not come. Perhaps I drank their souls in my blood sacrifices. 

My Grandfather was known, as the Lucas the Panderer, because he prostituted my Aunt and Grandmother for the King’s favor. In those days, as now, it would be important for his son to marry well. My Grandfather was an opportunist and saw a chance for my Uncle Manfryd to marry a granddaughter to the King, or a cousin. What was his daughter’s honor and sanity, next to gold and the lecherous King’s favor and gratitude. What are a woman’s tears or her anger? It was nothing, a cold wind, nothing more. We did not matter as much as power to my Grandfather. We were only as good as what we held between our thighs. 

My Aunt Jeyne was beautiful, sad, and crazy. Her rooms were in this Tower, not far from these rooms where I am imprisoned. The Tower of Ghosts would suit her she would say when she descended for dinner or guests. My mother would shake her head when her sister would emerge. However, whenever she came from her rooms in the towers, she would hug and kiss me and my brothers and we would love to see her. Sometimes, she would send her maid to come and find me and she would braid my hair or we would have a picnic on the edge of the God’s Eye. My Aunt was ruined and crazy, but no one could remember her any other way.

I miss my daughters and I cried for Mina, Lucienne, and Sheila and but they won't allow my daughters to see me. I tried banging the door and clawing at the stones. All it has done is torn the flesh and nails from my fingers. I find I like the hurt. I get no relief. I am pain, now. 

My grandfather died a bitter old fool. My Uncle was found dead. His hands cut off, his nose sliced in two, and his tongue cut out tied to a bed in a whorehouse. He had been tortured and no one had heard him, even though it had been full of people. It was a terribly painful death, and he must have screamed, yet no one heard his screams. He was pain, and in the end, no one could hear him. Or perhaps, they enjoyed listening to the screams.

 

I have red hair like my grandmother, Falena. My grandmother was a wicked women, full of lust and rage. All redheaded women are known to be lustful, angry creatures. Once, my father had a Septa come and try to save me. Instead, she gave up on her faith and came to my bed, begging for my touch, for my kiss. Perhaps, I am more like my grandmother than I would like to think.

I hope when they kill me that they do it at dusk, so that I can see the large clouds of bats, swooping in the darkening sky. Flying from tower to tower, I can hear their wings like my heart beat and feel their soft furry bodies, their wings as soft as baby’s skin, catching bugs in the fading sun. 

All my life I have dreamed bat dreams. All my life, I have felt a connection to the bats at Harrenhal. When I was a girl, I would dream of flying with them. My wings coasting through their air, gliding in the night. It is what initially drew me to her, my love. However, it has been years since I was anything like a girl. 

I have been a warrior for three Kings, fought in battle, ruled my lands, as strong as any man. I was as beautiful as I was strong. Men would desire me and my touch, even though I was married. I slept with a few but really I had given my heart years before to a careless girl. Even now, looking back, I would do it again. 

Finally, on the day before my execution, Brynden Rivers comes to my door and lets himself in, “Danelle, what have you done?”

Even Bloodraven is not ageless, he is getting wrinkles on his lovely skin.

I cough before I speak. I have not spoken in weeks and I am out of practice, “I was wondering when you would come. Sheira has been coming every night for weeks.”

“Danelle, Sheira has been dead for years.” 

“Brynden, you should not be here. They could hurt you, if you fraternize with a witch.” 

“No one will harm me, even if I talk to you. They expect no less. After all, I am no better than a witch. I am a Kinslayer and I poison Kings and have a thousand and one eyes. 

She laughs, “I have forgotten all your wickedness. Perhaps, you were the one to bring me to such wickedness.”

Brynden looks at her, quietly, “Perhaps, I did. You should have let me know if you needed me. I would have come to help you. Before all this, before all those dead children.”

“You were busy running the kingdom. It is no matter now. I hear you will give Harrenhal to Oskar Whent, Mina’s husband. I will need you to help me put on my armor. I have never faced certain death without it on.”

Brynden goes to hug her. She can hear them building a scaffold. Pushing him away from her, Danelle brushes her greying red hair. She does not need his comfort or his touch anymore. Mad Danelle Lothston is beyond feeling pain. Now, she is pain.


	2. My Beginning, The Kingspyre and House Hoare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is entirely AU, except for some of the history...

Sitting here, day after day, I imagine walking about the keep as if it were mine again. My childhood in this monstrous keep was simple, happy, even gentle. To be raised around monsters; traitors, pimps, ghosts and whores, you would think it was all bloodlust and mayhem. It was not. It was a simple happy childhood. I was known for daydreaming and roughhousing. I was raised around boys, my brothers, my cousins. All the children in House Lothston were boys except for myself and my beautiful younger sister, Arnelle. Boys were a sign of our strength. We would be around for generations, like Harrenhal itself.

My grandfather was still the Lord of Harrenhal when I was born in 177 A.C. and he was until I was six. Lucas Lothston was a fair lord, and though perhaps his bannermen did not agree to all the generosity he gave the King, they did not think he taxed them too heavily. They enjoyed peace for the most part for over thirty years my Grandfather was Lord of Harrenhal. He had three legitimate children that lived, my uncle Manfryd, my mother, Selena, and my aunt, Jeyne 

My Uncle Manfryd had been married the year I was born to Branda Bracken, the third Bracken daughter and he would often laugh and say the prettiest. She gave birth almost every year, dying before I reached my eighth birthday, but all her girls died in the cradle and of her boys only two reached majority, Lyle, and Daemon. Lyle was the only one year younger than me and he was my best friend as a child.

My mother, Selena, had married a second cousin, also a Lothston. My father was a quiet man, easily flattered, easily cowed. She had my brother Larys who was a year older, Lewin, who was two years younger, and my sister Arnelle, three years younger, who was born five months after my father died. My mother, often played the part of Lady of Harrenhal for feasts as well as managing the household for my uncle.

Osfryd Rivers was my grandfather’s bastard, but he had red hair like Mother. The Bastard of Harrenhal was known far and wide as a great tourney knight, a champion. He was over six feet tall and as strong as an ox. His mother had been a servant at Harrenhal who had died giving birth to him. It had been rumored that she was a bastard of the last male of House Strong, which is why Osfryd was so big. I do not know if I believe it; rumors are like rats around a keep they prosper in the dark. Grandmother Falena, who had died shortly after I was born, had allowed him to be raised around her children. I remember when I was young thinking how generous and kind-hearted she was to allow Osfryd a place at her table. Later, I would learn that she was not all I thought her to be. 

 

I grew up strong and fierce as a boy. My mother tried to stop me, but she could not beat it or shame it out of me. My Uncles Manfryd and Osfryd would laugh and plead with my mother to be more gentle. My Uncle Manfryd would say it was the blood of the First Men that ran so strong in our blood that led me to be wild and willful. He would gather me in his lap and tell me stories of how some of the First Men would allow their wives and daughters to fight with sword and shield. If sometimes he pressed me too close, it was worth it to hear the tales. 

I was given to daydreams and nightmares. I do not remember how young I was when they started. They were dreams of flying in the dark, swooping from Kingspyre to catch bugs, to sing songs in the night. We called them bat dreams and Aunt Jenny said it was from the ghost of the mad witch who walked through the walls of the keep, haunting us all and cursing us all. Uncle Osfryd said it was a gift of the First Men. The Septa thought it was proof of my wickedness. 

There are hundreds of bat colonies at Harrenhal. They live in the top of the Kingspyre. The castellan could not figure out a way to get rid of them. They lived in the holes of the melted Kingspyre, and we could not reach them because of the melted ruined stone.

Kingspyre is a lesson in irony, in humility, in death. How hot must stone and iron to melt like wax? I do not know the answer to that question, but I know that a dragon’s fire is that hot. When Balerion the Black Dread blew, they say the five towers of Harrenhal burned like candles melting under dragon's breath. People say they saw it burn as far away as High Heart, Riverrun, and Duskendale. Maybe it was just as far as Acorn Hall or Maidenpool. I was not there and couldn't say 

On the day, Old King Harren finished his monstrous keep was the very day Aegon came to conquer Westeros. The irony is not lost on me. I wonder if Harren laughed as his towers burned in madness and grief, laughed as he roasted. Even the Eyrie was not safe from dragons, no Wall is too high if you are a Dragon. Shiera told me that once in the dark.

I am not attracted to fire but to air and water and night. As a child, we would play on the lake, catching fireflies in the evening, I would hear the bats then, calling to me, sweeping low from Kingspyre. I could hear the bats sing to me their bat songs, “Come and fly with the colony. We are your family. Come and sing in the night.” 

 

My two favorite people in my childhood were crazy Aunt Jenny and Uncle Osfryd.

Aunt Jenny was mad. It was said she got an illness from her time in King's Landing and the fever from her illness made her mad. My Aunt Jenny was beautiful, the prettiest women I had ever seen with the lightest strawberry blonde hair and eyes the deepest violet blue. It was she who would braid my hair or tell me the stories of the history of Harrenhal. Once a month, if the weather was good, she would make one of my uncles' men take us to the Isle of Faces to have a picnic. But my favorite was when she would lay a blanket in the godwood and we would look at the stars.

Aunt Jenny would tell me about House Lothston being the blood of the first men and how we would dance with the Children of the Forest on the Isle of Faces and how they gave us the gift to fly with the wings of bats which is why they were our sigil. She would say, “If we are in danger we can call to the bats, they will come to our aid and drink the blood of our enemies.” 

 

Sometimes, she would take me to the enormous library in the back locked in a cage, and show me books I must never touch as they were filled with dark sorcery and terrible knowledge. To even touch one would be to die. Aunt Jeyne told me, “Our library has been touched with darkness since Old Harren. He had chained witches and mages from Westeros and Essos weaving spells into the stone, to keep him and his kin safe in the walls. On the day the last stone was laid, Harren slit the throats of the ones who still breathed and buried the hearts at the four corners of the keep. It is said that he had taken one to be his mistress and bedmate. Instead of just slitting her throat, he cut out her heart and ate it. It is she who haunts us still, whispering dark thoughts and curses in our heads while we sleep. That is her revenge.” 

Once I asked her what other kinds of spells were there, I could find in the library.

Aunt Jeyne had smiled, “My mother, your grandmother had love spells and potions. She told me once she used them on King Aegon the Fourth and he lusted after her until the day she died. There are spells for fertility, for prophecy, for protection. You can find all you need if you have the courage to look. Harrenhal has housed the greatest witches of the Seven Kingdoms; Rhaena Targaryen, Alys Rivers, Alys Harroway, Tyanna. All of them slept here and their spells are here. You just have to look. Their voices are still here if you just listen.” 

I 

 

My second favorite person was Uncle Osfryd. He was a big man with bright red hair and as good a fighter as there was. He had bested Quentyn Ball in a melee more than once. It was said Daeron had once thought to ask him to join the Kingsguard, but had not because he could not stand the Lothstons too close. We reminded him of his father's lechery and his dishonor. There was another story that Daeron had offered and Osfryd had declined because he loved Aunt Jenny and could not bear to be away from her. I never heard of a man declining a position of Kingsguard so I do think this was a rumor. 

Much later, I would see my Uncle Osfryd as Daemon Blackfyre’s Kingsguard on Redgrass Field. Of course, this was after Aunt Jeyne had died.

Later, I would hear that Aunt Jeyne and Osfryd committed incest and all sorts of unnatural acts and spells. I do not know all that. I never saw them act in any way except like loving siblings might but I could see how he softened and smiled when she was around. 

I would hear later that he slept with the Castellan of Harrenhal’s wife, Lady Mia Whent. She had three boys, Olyvar, Ossifer, and Ormund. All of them were tall, strong boys with fiery red hair. 

I was eleven when I heard the truth about my family. There was a servant who had told me that my grandmother was King Aegon’s whore and my grandfather was given Harrenhal for giving the King rights to his wife. I asked her what a whore was and she told me. She told me that the King had continued to come to Harrenhal the entire time my grandfather ruled. Worse still, she told me that Aunt Jeyne had been given to the King to fulfill his carnal pleasures. She even told me that they had both pleasured the King together in his bed. Jeyne had not caught a fever, but a pox from the King which had left her ruined, crazy, and barren. 

 

I had fled the woman, calling her a liar and threatening to tell my Uncle her stories so she would be beaten. I did not tell anyone. Instead, I went to the godswood looking for Aunt Jeyne. I found her at the heart’s tree. The heart’s tree at Harrenhal is a terrible gruesome face, screaming in red rage. There were thirteen cut marks in it. Aunt Jeyne was standing there, touching the red sap staining her fingers with the sticky stuff. 

I asked her, approaching softly, “Aunt Jeyne… Who cut the hearts tree?”

“Daemon Targaryen to send word to his nephew to come and face him with swords and dragons.” 

“I don't like the cuts. We should try and heal it.”

“Leave it, Dany. Blood is a powerful magic of its own. Blood of a weirwood heart tree is an even more powerful. The First Men knew this as did the Andals, who slaughtered the Children and their groves.” 

I asked another question, “Why did Daemon want to hurt his nephew?”

“A throne. A crown. Sometimes we are hurt by our family more than strangers. Danelle, you know the story of the Dance of Dragons, as well as the Battle of the God’s Eye. You and I have one to see the bones beneath Harrenhal of Caraxes. They took his skull and cleaned it and brought it to King’s Landing but his bones were kept at Harrenhal. Prince Aemond and Vhagar were in the lake until my father got men to pull them out with chains.” 

That night after I was put to bed, I snuck from my room to the heart’s tree and I stuck my fingers in the sap. I felt the strength of the earth and the sky. I heard the songs of the bat colonies, tens of hundreds of voices in a song of the night. I saw dreams of past things and saw dark and beautiful things in the shadow. I heard the voices of the powerful witch women among the night. They pr I knew then I was lost in the night. 

When I was twelve, there was a fight at dinner. It had started because my Aunt came down and in her arms, she had a porcelain doll. When she was not well in her head, she would call it her baby and think it was a real infant. It seemed that more and more my Aunt Jeyne was lost in madness and no one could save her. 

My mother had asked her to put the doll down and eat. Aunt Jeyne had started to cry. She had looked at me but she did not see me. Instead, she saw her mother, my grandmother, Falena. She cried and touched me, pulling at my arm, Mother, why did you bring me to the Red Keep? I did not want to go. You made me go to him. You gave me spiced wine, laced with potions, elixirs. You drugged me and he took what he wanted Every time, I think of him, I cringe. You ruined me! I am ruined now!”

 

My mother pulled her off me and took her face in both her hands, “Jeyne, it is me, Selena. Mother and Father are both dead as is the King. This is Danelle, not Mother.” 

But Aunt Jeyne would not stop. Instead, she continued, “House Lothston is known for pimps and whores. Mother and daughters, Sisters Together. I saw you there when the King came to Harrenhal and took us. He took you too. Did you not tell me your Dany was the King’s and not your husband's until she came out with red hair? Do not worry, Selena. She may have red hair but she is full of the Blood of the Dragon. She is as much our doom as Aegon was to House Hoare.”

Aunt Jeyne reached for me, scratching me with her nails, raving. “Sisters together, Mother with them! No wonder we Lothstons were known for wickedness. No wonder my grandfather was called a panderer. Daughter of the King and still the King fucked me at thirteen! Selena has all the children meant for me and I have nothing but a tower full of bats. They come to me sometimes and wrap their huge wings around my naked body. They fuck me at night, all night! They fuck me instead of the King!”

At this point, Uncle Osfryd stood up, unable to take her madness any longer and gathered her in his arms and carried her to her tower room, crying and screaming, to be locked in for the night. It seems Lothston women have a tendency to be locked away for being mad.

 

Later, my Uncle Osfryd found me at the heart tree and sat at the trunk. We sat there for at least an hour without speaking. Finally, he spoke, “You know how Aunt Jenny can be. I know she did not mean it.”

I spoke to him, though I watched the bats, “I am twelve and I know what people say about our House. I am not deaf. I know what they say about Grandmother and Grandfather and Aunt Jenny. I know of Aegon IV. He is known as Aegon the Unworthy to some. I know what Aunt Jenny meant I am not stupid. She was the King’s mistress, his whore and so was Grandmother together… and maybe Mother too."

At this point, I felt my voice cracked and I was shamed at how tears spilled down my cheeks.

“Don't listen to all that people will say. Your grandfather, Lucas Lothston, was a great knight, so great that Viserys, Hand of the King, chose him to be Master at Arms of the Red Keep. Viserys did that when Aegon the Third was King, long before, whatever else. The King is a valuable ally and the Targaryen's gave us all we have and we are loyal. We are the King’s men.”

My Uncle continued speaking, “Lucas Lothston was a loyalist, true to the Targaryens, in thick and thin. When Viserys needed someone to help the cousin of the King out of some trouble, he did as the King bid and took Falena as his wife. King Aegon IV had many feasts here at Harrenhal. We had four Kings eat here when your Grandfather was Lord of Harrenhall. Aegon III, Daeron I, Viserys I and Aegon IV. Only Baelor was not feasted here and that is because he did not eat.”

I laughed a little at his joke. I knew he was trying to make me happy and bring me peace. Osfryd continued, “My Father’s first act as Lord was to pull the bones of Vhagar and Prince Aemond from the lake. They had been rotting and for all to see for over twenty years. It was he who handed Dark Sister, the ancestral Valyrian sword, to Aegon III and accompanied the bones to King’s Landing. There were feasting and parades for House Targaryen and House Lothston that day. It is true King Aegon IV would visit us often in the day when he was well. Other Houses grew jealous. It does not matter all the rest. We are loyal to the crown, to the Targaryens. We are their strongest supporters. They have given us Harrenhal, the greatest castle in all of Westeros and we give them our loyalty, our steel, and our lives, if necessary. Let others speak and tell stories. We know the truth of it.”

I remembered as he spoke that there were so many unanswered questions like what would loyalty to the Targaryens mean I would give them when the time came? 

 

He smiled at me and touched my hand.” Dany, remember a King is a good friend to have in winter.”

By the next moon, Aunt Jeyne was found hanging in the yard. She had killed herself. It was a dark omen of things to come. 

When I was thirteen, Uncle Manfred brought me to King’s Landing. King’s Landing was full of Targaryens and their wives and daughters. All these women needed highborn attendants and companions. Uncle Manfryd had used his position and found me a place in the Red Keep, as a companion for the King’s half-sister, Sheira. 

I remember riding beside him to King’s Landing, as his hands lingered a bit too long on my arms or legs, listening to him,” There still many sons and grandsons, brothers, bastards, and nephews. You are a pretty girl, pretty enough to catch a Dragon for us.”


End file.
